Knit to This
Temple Grandin
Dear Ann,
A knitter’s joyful Instagram post about meeting Temple Grandin led me back to the work of this visionary thinker on how our minds, especially minds of autistic persons, work, and the contributions that different minds make to human progress and survival. Grandin is many things, but tops on the list is that she gives concrete hope and guidance to parents of autistic kids. She’s an engaging speaker, who shares the sartorial flair of our favorite singing economist, Merle Hazard.
Up top is the trailer to the HBO movie Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes, which is streaming on Amazon Prime and probably also available at your local library. The film is based on Grandin’s book, Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism.
Here’s a 2010 TED talk Temple Grandin gave, under 20 minutes long.
For longer-form Grandin, I also listened to this 2006 NPR interview.
And for those who can knit while reading, I highly recommend Oliver Sacks’s profile of Grandin in a 1993 (!) article in the New Yorker magazine.
Love,
Kay
I really loved the Temple Grandin movie with Claire Danes, a really enlightening experience for me.
PS – looking forward to ordering a copy of the latest Field Guide next week!
Was the Oliver Sacks article that long ago? I remember it vividly, and it spurred me to keep up with other Temple Grandin projects.
Thinking In Pictures changed the way I teach!
Oh, my friends – you know I love this so very much. ❤️
Thank you for recommending this movie. You have recommended SO many wonderful movies, shows and music. Thanks. 🙂
I studied and taught Special Needs at Simmons College. I had the pleasure of hearing Temple Grandin almost 20 years ago. A remarkable brilliant woman who certainly influenced my teaching.
Loved the book and the movie
Thank you so much…(hearts)
Watched the TED talk, did not knit to it as I was mesmerized. Thank you.
Two of my three sons are on the autism spectrum and, when she came to town, I made sure I got tickets to see her speak. They left knowing that their lives could be meaningful and wonderful – a true blessing in a time when no one had heard of Asperger Syndrome and school was a daily torture (at least for one of them). What a lovely human being! She has a great sense of humor, too. 🙂
As a mom with a child who is brilliant and has Asperger’s, every time I see, read, or think about Temple I begin to cry because there are so many people in this world who are misunderstood but have so much to give. thank you MDK for “sharing” this world with our fellow knitters – we are all creative thinkers in many different ways!
I know bits and pieces about Temple Grandin and look forward to hearing the TED talk, in particular. I’ve intended to read the book since it first came out – times flies! Grandin’s name comes up often in the context of slaughterhouses, and reducing unnecessary stress to animals being handled in livestock operations.
Thanks for sharing. I am better for reading and learning of.
I was fortunate to hear her at Strathmore in Maryland on Sept 7,2018.She had been at NIH and had talked at this venue which was in support of the Rockville Science Center which is moving closer to a permanent home in Rockville. It was a pleasure to hear her after a talk some years ago in Calif She was wonderful and erudite and a self-proclaimed enthusiastic “book supporter/book seller”.
Thank you, thank you for posting these links. I was fascinated by her book years ago, and this TED talk is a real treat. I had no idea that, besides being brilliant, she was so much fun. She must be such a breath of fresh air for anyone with a loved one on the autism spectrum. Also, fabulous outfit.
Temple Grandin is so inspiring! I’ve seen her speak twice AND just a few days ago, I was at Iowa State University for a work-related thing and saw that she was speaking there. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the living room of my B&B and saw her sitting there! (She was in conversation, so I didn’t interrupt, but I kind of wish I had….)
We used this movie during a women’s retreat to prompt discussion about engaging with the “other”. Temple is amazing, and as the movie brings out, she was helped at critical stages of her life by loving and generous people–her mother, her college roommate, one of her first bosses as examples. Truly inspiring. I didn’t know about the TED talk. Thanks for the reference — will look that up.
For a long term commitment to a podcast, if you love history, is Jamie Jeffers’ British History Podcast. It’s incredibly detailed, with explanations not only of what happened but of how we figure that out…for serious history nerds. I also recommend Pod Save America for twice-weekly analysis of the craziness that is Washington politics these days. Insightful and well done, and those boys make me laugh.
Thank you for sharing about Temple Grandin. What an amazing woman! I first learned of her in the 80’s from a friend that had her as an instructor in veterinary school.